


Tall Tails

by tea_petty



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Magic, Magical Accidents, Other, Shyness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-03 20:46:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20459216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_petty/pseuds/tea_petty
Summary: Jenna makes a magical faux pas, and tries to hide it from Asra.





	Tall Tails

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to my Tumblr, tea-petty, for aoi-hina, featuring her apprentice, Jenna.

Clouds of dust erupted where the bristles of the broom scratched against the floor, leaving a trail of somewhat less dirty patches in Jenna’s wake. Brow furrowed with an insistent ignorance to this, she continued to sweep, sneezing when the dust reached up to tickle her nose.

A flash of irritation went through her and she threw it handle first to the floor. Another cloud awoke from repose at impact, pulling Jenna into another fit of sneezes, that only made her glower at the discarded broom.

That was certainly enough sweeping for one day.

Jenna let her gaze sweep across the shop’s main area; it really hadn’t looked so bad. The rich colors of the tapestries and artifacts she and Asra had cultivated throughout the years made it look lively and alluring, the rosettes in the elaborately woven rug popped as gold embossed in the fabric, as if spun by a particular fair-haired maiden locked in a tower herself.

Really, it was only when Jenna unshuttered the windows, and let the light illuminate the thin coat of dust on everything, that she had felt guilted into cleaning. Annoyance triumphed over all else in her now though, and she went to the blasted window to close the damned thing once more, falling sweetly for the illusion of cleanliness in her homely little shop. 

Her hands no sooner had brushed the wood of the shutters, that through the haze of dust and slated sunlight, a bright, thin stripe of color stood out from the bookcase across the room. Jenna turned to it and squinted to see better, not realizing her feet were carrying her closer to it, until she was near close enough to run her finger along the book’s spine.

It wasn’t the only red-covered book Asra and her owned, but it certainly was the brightest. Then, Jenna _did_ run her finger along the spine, felt the plushness of the diamond-imprinted leather – it was as if it had been flayed from a calf only moments before, still breathing and twitching with renowned life.

Out of the day’s habits, she pulled her finger back to inspect the spotless pad of her forefinger. It was also the least dirty of their collection. 

And it was almost certainly her master’s.

A curious excitement started to swell in her; the same sort that had when she had first become Asra’s doe-eyed apprentice, she imagined. Jenna pulled the book from its fitted place, and carefully flipped it open.

The bulk of it strained against the motion – a book seldom read, by the feel of it. 

Despite its pristine condition, the pages had a bit of tearing around the edges and were well-yellowed with age. Jenna’s touches immediately became imbued with the reverence one might get around holy texts.

Almost immediately, with all the swirled ink symbols, and flared calligraphy – magician’s hand, as she jokingly called it – Jenna recognized it to be a spell book, and one bursting at the bindings with things she had yet to practice herself.

Spells to transfigure one’s hair, spells to summon the presence of alluring demons that feasted on the desires of the flesh – Jenna flushed darkly at this, wondering if Asra had ever used such invocations himself. Something craven wrenched at her gut, much like it had when Faust had shown her visions of Julian and Asra _before_…

A particular section in the book jumped out at her and halted her idle flipping.

Like every other passage in the book, it was done in elegant swirls of black ink; although there was a trail of mysterious red spotting that Jenna wasn’t quite sure she wanted to know the source of. 

Past the staining, was a crude sketch of something sinisterly humanoid looking, and at the same time, too animal to _be_ human.

The eyes looked frantic, the limbs, joined strangely, with sharp edges where there should’ve been smooth bone and muscle. Jenna read the inscription; _Animalis Transfiguratione._

Jenna’s heart reverberated in her chest, ricocheting off her sternum as if with each violent vibration, it was trying to shove her towards trying the spell for herself. A rush of adrenaline surged through her; she’d changed her appearance before with magic, sure. In the marketplace with Asra for the love reading, for an example – like soft, rose-scented rain trickling over her, masking her in a warm, secret comfort.

This seemed…much different though.

Perhaps it was the hard, scrawled lines of the sketch, but this seemed more painful. Less playing dress up, and more the grinding of bone, and breaking of skin.

For a moment, Jenna felt herself grow chilled with a clammy sweat, but then she noticed that the spell itself consisted only of commandeering a deep concentration. Surely, she could handle something like that by now.

Jenna set her jaw; she would, most definitely.

-

Her gaze shifted around the empty clearing, searching for eyes that might be watching her back from the shadowed depths of the foliage. Or else, perhaps specifically, she was searching out the warning look of Asra. She steeled herself against this muted, guilty, this self-induced fear, and flipped open the book to the page she’d dog-eared.

There was no one for miles, except for maybe any hunters and trappers, but Vesuvia was scarce in those too. From behind the tops of trees, the grand, artful spires of the palace peeked out in the distance. Jenna was separated from any watchful eyes by the expanse of woods where the city melted into the petering of trees and bushes, rolling hills, and perhaps even a babbling brook or two. 

From the wall of greenery, a shriek of a bird Jenna couldn’t quite identify echoed; her nearest voyeur. This specific part of the woods seemed especially private. Jenna felt herself relax a little bit.

The spell required the caster to be able to visualize strongly; but that was the first thing Asra had taught Jenna. This part was of no difficulty. 

Letting her eyes flutter shut to make it easier to focus, Jenna conjured up the image of a dog in her mind; small, white and scruffy, his tuffs of fluffy, white hair not unlike Asra’s own eccentric curls. 

The next step was a bit more difficult. 

Jenna liked to think about it like an increased sensory version of the visualization itself. Willing herself to become one with the dog, she imagined what it might feel like to embody the four paws, to wag its tail as her own, to see through its dark, marble eyes. 

She felt her consciousness expand inside the dog, felt its own panting breath as hers. Suddenly, it was as if there was a whole lot more of her for the vessel she filled. When her eyes opened again, everything was muted in color, the once vibrant hues now bleakened to near black, white, and occasionally, a sickly green.

When she moved, she moved with the agility of being on four legs instead of two. The first few steps she took were a little clumsy when she thought like a human, so she decided to stop thinking entirely, and soon she was able to lope about as agilely as any other dog. 

Jenna let out a yip of excitement; she would’ve jumped with joy if she’d known how to in this body. She settled for circling in an enthusiastic donut and wagging her tail with great vengeance.

Excellent! Fantastic! She had to show Asra!

She might even consider playing a joke on her unsuspecting mentor, Jenna thought impishly. She could reclaim this shape again in the shop and wait for him to come home, only to transform back as soon as he moved in to greet the pup! It was diabolical! It was ingenious; Jenna could hardly wait.

She let her eyes fall shut again, trying with great effort to stifle her haughty excitement for her plan enough to hold her own image in her mind. Similarly, to how she did with the dog’s visage, she imagined her essence spreading through her imagined form; warmth spread through her tingling fingers and toes, her spine elongating like she was taking a long, luxurious stretch, her eyes-

A sudden rustle in some nearby bushes had Jenna whirling in the direction of the sound, her eyes snapped open just in time for her to see a fluffy-tailed rabbit dart out from a cluster of shrubs, still waving from the motion of the animal’s speedy takeoff. 

She felt the warm tingle of magic, and effervescence still ebbing in her limbs leave her with an abruptness that made her feel a hint abandoned.

Jenna looked down at her feet. She only had two, and yet something felt, very, _very_wrong. She felt her nose twitch agitatedly, with a quickness she thought it lacked prior to attempting this spell.

Across the clearing, was a modest pool of water; collected by the runoff from the recent spell of rains that had graced Vesuvia, and the small divot in the earth. Jenna went to it, each step dragging like she had chains around her ankles, her dread climbing as she drew nearer. She peered tentatively over the edge to gaze upon her reflection.

Same warm, tawny eyes, same gentle, brown curls. Most everything was the same in fact, save for the fluffy, white ears poking out from behind wisps of brown hair – unchanged from the form she’d taken just a few minutes before – and her nose, small, black, and shiny. Her lips fell agape in horror, and she flinched when she thought she saw something primal glimmer in the depths of her eyes. 

Panic swelled in her, and as her heart raced, she couldn’t help but wonder if that was more beast than her too. The solution should be simple; refocus and retry. The spell was reliant on visualization and inner focus, as such, the solution was surely the same.

However, Jenna couldn’t get her heart – racing in leaps and bounds – to slow, and so such focus was nearly impossible. She felt like wet flint that wouldn’t light.

Frustrated tears sprang at the corner of her eyes, and in her agitation, she wrenched her hands up to run through her hair. Where long tendrils should’ve greeted her, her stiff fingers found the fragile cartilage of her new ears. Realizing too late to pull her punches, her hands clamped painfully at them, and she let out a yelp of pain.

She couldn’t return to town like this!

Her chest squeezed for a moment; or else maybe returning was exactly what she had to do.

From the corner of her mind, she recalled something Asra had shown her weeks before. ‘Disenchantment Elixir’ is what he called it, if she remembered right. 

When he’d shown it to her, it had come in a tiny crystal bottle – as ornate as one that might hold perfume – and held a silvery liquid that looked like he’d sampled water from the beach off the Magician’s realm.

A concoction of Mazelinka’s, he’d reported; a recipe even unknown to him still, and potent enough to break all spells, save those bound to the caster in blood.

The levity of hope calcified in Jenna’s gut, and dropped like a stone. 

The shop was _dreadfully_ far; and while Jenna had been content to make the trek on such a lovely day when she was invigorated by her magical foray, she was much less so in her current form, while touting her magical faux pas.

The masses would either stone her and burn her at the stake, or much more likely, they would laugh, and chide her, and ruffle her ears. 

Jenna was almost positive that in her current mortification, she’d choose the stake.

Even if she did somehow manage to skirt the masses, she might return to the shop only to find that none of the desired draught remained. No, a much safer plan, was to go to the source herself, and employ Mazelinka’s help.

-

Conveniently situated at the edge of Vesuvia, Jenna was on the brink of celebrating her success in remaining undetected until she’d knocked on the familiar, worn, wood of the door. Instead of a matronly face, creased with age, she was met with two sets of limpid, blue eyes, and devilish red curls.

They lit up in a twin mingling of surprise and shock.

“Jenna?” Julian asked, leaving the blatant disregard of personal boundaries to his younger sister.

“What happened?” Portia gasped, as her hands flitted to the fluffy ears sprouting at the crown of Jenna’s head.

“I, uh -” Jenna felt her face heat, and she resisted the urge to melt into the floor, “had a bit of an accident.”

Julian blanched, suddenly looking quite tired, although it was not his own image that was working doggedly.

“By accident you mean a…a…the sort you, erhm, _arcane folk_ might be prone to?”

Portia’s eyes were still alight, though it seemed much more excited than what Jenna thought the situation called for.

“Ooh, you did this with magic, didn’t you? What happened?” she repeated, her thumbs rubbing at Jenna’s fuzzy ears, “tell me everything!”

Jenna swatted her friend’s hands away, face going darker. She opened her mouth to say something, when the shuffling of a third pair of footsteps saved Jenna from losing her voice to her extremely flustered state.

“This is how you treat guests? Honestly, Pasha, Ilya,” a grandmotherly voice scolded, her vowels lilted with the ring of Nevivon lingering at her tongue. The sea of red curls parted to make away for Mazelinka at her staggering squatness. From beneath graying eyebrows, her eyes, still sharp and glinting like iron, found Jenna with a flatness that made her squirm. “Ah. I see. You had an ‘accident’.”

“I did.”

As if she weren’t already embarrassed enough, Jenna felt her ears flatten against her skull. Her body was balking before she even had a chance to.

“And so, you’ve come for the cure, I presume?”

Jenna ducked her head, feeling like a child being scolded for trying to sneak a sweet before dinner.

Mazelinka nodded, “I can make it for you well enough, although you’ll have to wait a little for the ingredients to steep properly.”

Jenna lifted her gaze, and noted the subtle, upturned corners of the old woman’s lips.

“Come in, come in,” Mazelinka gestured further into the threshold, before turning to pad off into the kitchen nearby. “I’m sure Pasha and Ilya can entertain you in the meantime.”

As Mazelinka disappeared behind a veil of steam and the wafting aroma of herbs, Julian and Portia corralled her into what served as the den. It was as meager in furniture and décor as the rest of the home but curled up in a nest of pillows Portia had skillfully layered, Jenna felt like the Countess. 

“Jenna,” Julian inquired, “not that we don’t love your company, but surely Asra knows how to concoct such a…cure, as well. Why come all this way?”

Jenna had expected this question, and in order to sneak past the Devorak’s ability to sniff out things that people intended to stay hidden, she’d had a snappy answer on standby, hiding in her cheeks like a squirrel’s winter store.

Alas, she was too quick on the draw though, and Portia saw through her right away.

“Why doesn’t Asra know?” she asked, not skipping a beat, her eyes blinking too innocently for such perceptiveness. 

Julian was a bit slower than both of them.

“_Asra_ doesn’t know?”

Portia cuffed her older brother playfully on the back of the head.

“Of course he doesn’t! Keep up, would ya?” She turned attentively back to Jenna, holding her to her answer.

“Well, he wasn’t…_around_ when I, uh - when this happened,” Jenna admitted, and she felt her ears swivel nervously.

“So why not tell him now? Surely, he’d help you still,” Julian’s voice hardened a bit at the end, though Jenna didn’t dare ask about it.

Portia studied Jenna’s face as she struggled for an answer. When her eyebrows shot up again, Jenna knew she had lost again. For a moment, she took pause to thank whatever gods there may be, that she’d never been in a quick draw duel against Portia. 

The younger Devorak raised her index finger in a gesture that was almost scientific.

“I got it! You don’t want Asra to know you messed up, right?”

Jenna flushed, knowing damnedly, that it would be answer enough.

“That has to be it – I mean, she looks real cute with the ears, so it can’t be that.”

Jenna opened her mouth to be indignant, when almost as if cued, there came a knock at the door.

Three pairs of eyes met in the middle of Mazelinka’s den.

“No way,” Portia hissed.

Julian rose up onto the balls of his feet and crept towards the windows. His finger barely nudged the underside of the thin drapes at the windows, before he pressed himself abruptly to the wall beside it.

“_It’s Asra!_” he mouthed to them.

Portia and Jenna turned to look at each other. They had exactly one moment to settle into their panic before the knock came again, and they scrambled to their feet.

“In the back!” Portia whispered, ushering Jenna into the quaint bedroom.

From the kitchen, Mazelinka called for someone to get the door.

In the bedroom, Portia huddled with Jenna in the corner, hands clamped over their mouths as if the whisper of furtive breaths would give their meager hiding spots away. They could hear the creak of the door as it opened, and then two voices in alteration.

“Asra,” Julian greeted, his usually smooth voice, dry, “to what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Julian,” Asra greeted curtly, “is Mazelinka in? I was supposed to pick something up from her.”

He sounded impatient. Jenna could imagine him peering exaggeratedly about Julian, if for no other reason than to demonstrate his disinterest in speaking to him.

Footsteps hovered close to the door, though too heavy and flat-footed to be Asra’s.

Still though, Jenna’s breath caught in her throat.

“Asra! You’ve come for the ingredients,” she heard Mazelinka say. “Here they are, as promised.”

“Thank you,”

Now the warmth that Jenna was more accustomed to hearing in her master’s voice returned with his earnest graciousness. 

“Are you cooking something? It smells…familiar,”

Asra’s voice sounded more interested than his question should’ve been.

“Broth,” Mazelinka answered dismissively, “Ilya’s got wind in his stomach.”

Jenna could feel Portia’s laughter scrape at her from the inside as her friend kept it tightly packed in. Surely, Julian was none too pleased to be their cover story.

Jenna could hear the muffled resolution of the conversation, and the door’s creak again. She let out a relieved stream of air, and emerged from the back room until something – a foot? A hand? – cut both her and the door off.

Then, with a swiftness that denied Jenna the courtesy of at least being panicked again, Asra appeared in Mazelinka’s doorway once more.

“Oh, by the way, you haven’t seen Jenna at all, have you? She hasn’t been around all morning and-“

His eyes found hers.

Jenna felt heat suffuse her skin, all but steaming off her face and falling to her shoulders. Her eyes fell to the ground, and she resisted the urge to cover her face, mostly because she was torn between that or covering her ears.

She felt fuzzy, detached from the air that stung her eyes and throat. She spun on her heel and retreated back into the bedroom. It was horribly juvenile; she knew that as she did it, but if she was to be ashamed anyways, perhaps she could at least steal a couple of moments to herself to try and soothe her seared skin.

Despite the privacy the room offered, Jenna buried her face into the palms of her hands anyways, needing to feel more alone than she currently was. Then, as luck would have it, another soft knock sounded at the door, a tender echo of the one she’d been listening to from the corner of the very same room, just minutes before. 

She didn’t answer to it, and she heard the sound of someone entering the room. A few moments later, the bed divoted from beside her, and through the spaces between her fingers, Jenna could see the tell-tale ornate fabrics that Asra often swathed himself in.

“So, this is what you’ve been up to all day,” a light, airy voice teased.

Jenna felt herself warm again behind the cover of her hands. It was almost dizzyingly feverish at this point, and she let them fall to her lap, although she still didn’t trust her voice to respond, for surely, she’d choke on her words.

“Mazelinka’s almost finished with the elixir, so you should be able to go back to normal soon,” Asra continued.

Jenna nodded, jerky and tense.

“I saw that you found my book. You should’ve waited until I returned to ask me about it.”

Jenna’s eyes were fixed at her useless hands at her lap, hot tears stealing to the corners of her eyes. This is exactly the opposite of what she’d wanted him to believe after today. She felt Asra watch her but couldn’t bring herself to meet his stare. 

Then, she felt something gentle, and finally – pleasantly warm – brush at the back of her hand.

“There’s no harm in failing the first time, you know.”

Jenna swallowed; how easy for him to say.

“The first time I attempted this spell, I had whiskers and a tail for almost three days. I had no idea of Mazelinka’s miracle elixir.”

This made Jenna break out into a sudden giggle. She clamped her hand over her mouth as soon as she realized she was laughing. When she looked over at Asra, she found that he was laughing too.

“I bet you made a really cute kitty!”

Asra’s own cheeks reddened. 

“No cuter than you are now,” he reached up to ruffle her hair.

At the feel of his warm fingers grazing her ears, Jenna’s laugh dissipated at her lips. She resisted the urge to relent to the tremble that rose inside her.

Asra never gave her the chance to.

Jenna was paralyzed, watching him with unblinking eyes as if his touch had turned her to stone. Though the motion of his touch stopped, it never left her. 

He was quiet, his lips were hiding a secret she wanted desperately to know but couldn’t ask for. Then he grew bigger, and it was then that Jenna realized her was drawing closer. He loomed in front of her, just a few spare, throbbing moments. She felt his breath fan against her face, and had she been able to move at all, her eyelashes might have fluttered against their adoring affections as he soothed them into her. 

They had touched plenty. They had shared a bed. They shared a heart, she sometimes thought, with the perfect synchronicity they had struck so that the world may follow. 

She waited for him to move so _she_ could follow. His eyes caressed at her face, studied her like she was one of the expensive paintings in the palace. Jenna had to look away, and that’s when he struck.

He leaned in, his lips brushing against her forehead, his hand smoothing the hair away from it to make room.

And now, Jenna did shudder into him. Without her permission, her hands flew up to the folds of his white shirt, as they curled against his bare chest. She grasped them, pulling him closer, and holding herself steady. Another low chuckle rumbled inside him, and then the petal soft touches of his lips rained down at her cheeks and the corner of her mouth. 

Jenna gasped lightly.

They had never done this before, but each kiss held the promise of maybe a million or two more. Kissing her came so easily to him, it seemed, had he seen this before? Studied her in his dreams? Her cheeks burned; she surely had.

One lithe finger reached under her chin and tilted it upwards. Now, Jenna pinched her eyes shut, bracing herself for the impact of his mouth as it melded to hers, and what it would do to the rest of her along the way.

When his lips met hers, the rest of her seemed to float far away. It didn’t much matter though; she didn’t miss it, because the only part that mattered was the part that was clutching onto Asra like he was the only real thing in this realm, her lips as she tasted him – the tang of wine, and sweetness of pumpkin bread – so perfectly potent, so earnest, like the magician himself.

Behind her eyelids, stars winked back at her; there was no earth, no heavens, no sky or sun – just this kiss, and everything else wrapped in it. 

She shivered, and where the coldness of reality nipped at her exposed skin, Asra’s warm touches chased the chill away.

The sound of the door swinging open, handle knocking against the wall behind it, startled Asra and Jenna abruptly apart. 

In the doorway, Mazelinka studied them, a knowing gleam in her eyes.

“The elixir is ready,” she said, her eyes passing between the new space that had sprung between them.

“Right, yes, thank you,” Asra answered for both, his face a deep red, although not quite as feverish as Jenna’s, who looked barely able to breathe, let alone talk.

Mazelinka gave a short nod, before turning to take her leave.

“Next time, I’ll knock!” she called behind her.

Jenna was still running through her usual progression of reds as Asra gently took her arm in his and guided her up and out of the room; pink, then very pink, dark crimson, back to pink.

Mazelinka, Portia, and Julian were standing about, looking all too casual as they crossed the threshold in reverse. Asra accepted the vial, three-quarters full of the silvery, iridescent liquid.

“Thank you,” he said warmly, bobbing his head in a modest bow, “we really appreciate it.”

Mazelinka still looked like she was half-smiling as she regarded the pair.

“It’s no trouble. Please, come visit again soon.”

As they passed the Devoraks on the way out, Jenna couldn’t help but hazard a glimpse in their direction. Julian looked stiff-lipped, as he often did around Asra, his eyes fixed straight ahead. Portia on the other hand, had her eyes on Jenna, ready to throw her a mischievous wink when she caught the apprentice’s eye.

Jenna flushed again at all the implications she knew the younger Devorak was willing her way, for when she and Asra returned to the shop. Still though, her hand never hesitated in returning his gentle grasp, as they made the walk home, hand in hand, into the direction of the clustered silhouettes of Vesuvia in the distance.


End file.
